In Jason’s innovation presentation, we learnt what innovation is and pivotal innovation in history, pre-modern innovations, modern innovations and disruptive innovations; we also acknowledged the difference of traditional and innovative corporate cultures. This presentation revealed several methods that how companies can foster innovation as well.
Nowadays, Huawei has been widely known as a global leading ICT (Information Communication Technology) company, which has become the symbol of Chinese innovative enterprise. Huawei achieves great commercial success both in domestic and overseas market. In 2016, its revenue reached 521,574 million RMB, of which 51.4% came from oversea market.
Huawei has established a competitive portfolio of end-to-end solutions in telecom and enterprise networks, devices, and cloud computing in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world’s population.
My study buddy Rebecca and I believe that there are four aspects showing that how Huawei is a innovative company.
First, Huawei keeps investing huge resources in to Research and Development. In 2016, they put 70 billion RMB in R&D. That’s roughly 15% of its revenue in that year. Huawei hires 170 thousand people worldwide, with about 80 thousand employees engaged in R&D, counting 45% of its workforce.At the same time Huawei works collaboratively with its global partners to advance technology progress.
Besides, in order to explore new ICT breakthroughs, the Huawei Innovation Research Program (HIRP) sponsored more than 200 innovation and research projects, including research in basic science such as mathematics,physics, and chemistry. We worked with mathematicians from around the world,including Fields Medal and Wolf Prize winners, on projects ranging from fundamental mathematical theory to key engineering questions.
Second, Huawei is a rule maker rather than a player. As a saying goes,third class companies are stubborn on products; second class companies focus on technologies; top class companies are making industrial standards. Huawei is now a major contributor to ICT standards. They are actively involved in the development and promotion of international ICT standards. In 2016, Huawei filled about 60,000 patent applications within China and 40,000 applications outside China.After two year trail, Huawei just won the intellectual property dispute with Sangsum at the beginning of 2018. Sang sum was ordered to stop making and selling any products that violated Huawei’s patents. Now Huawei is a member of 360 standards organizations, industry alliances, and open source communities,and holds more than 300 positions of responsibility within these organizations.
Third, Huawei has a clear development strategy. Unlike its rivals orany other giants corporations, Huawei refuse to invest in unfamiliar fields, instead,they keep focusing on what they specialized in. At the same time, Huawei follows governmental developmental strategy, answering the call of Belt and Road strategy, which enable them to gain large market share in new emerging markets. Ren Zhengfei, known as the found father of Huawei, used to be a soldier,believing Chairman Mao’s famous thinking “the road of encircling the cities from the rural areas”.
Last but not the least, the key of Huawei’s business and innovative success lies in the highly efficient management. Huawei is famous for its wolf culture.Every employee is seen as a innovative and devoted individual. They work hard and get rewarded by Profit sharing plan & Stock incentive plan. This system treasures talents and digs their potential, giving each talent space to grow and dig their potentials.
In conclusion, recent innovation relies more on organizational intense capital input, managerial and technology professional long time engagement, and rich resources rather than individual. Though it’s hard to duplicate, Huawei’s success on innovation inspires more and more Chinese entrepreneurs to compete with international rivals on a wide stage in the new era in 21th century.
Ps: All pictures and data come from Huawei website. Delete all related information immediately if I am asked to.
